On the Happy Life

All men wish to live happily, but are dull at perceiving exactly what it is that makes life happy: and so far is it from being easy to attain to happiness that the more eagerly a man struggles to reach it the further he departs from it, if he takes the wrong road.

Let us not therefore decide whither we must tend, and by what path, without the advice of some experienced person who has explored the region which we are about to enter, because this journey is not subject to the same conditions as others.

True happiness consists in not departing from nature and in molding our conduct according to her laws and model. A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature, and cannot be brought about unless in the first place the mind be sound and vigorous, enduring all things with most admirable courage suited to the times in which it lives, and must be able to enjoy the bounty of Fortune without becoming her slave.

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A happy life consists in a mind which is free, upright, undaunted and steadfast beyond the influence of fear or desire. A man must be accompanied by a continual cheerfulness, a high happiness, which comes indeed from on high because he delights in what he has. If we attain to this, then there will dawn upon us those invaluable blessings, The repose of a mind that is at rest in a safe haven, its lofty imaginings, its great and steady delight at casting out errors and learning to know the truth, its courtesy and its cheerfulness, in all of which we shall take delight.

Virtue is a lofty quality, sublime, royal, unconquerable, untiring. You will meet virtue in the temple, the marketplace, the senate-house, manning the walls, covered with dust, sunburnt, horny-handed; you will find pleasure sulking out of sight, seeking for shady nooks.

The highest good is immortal. It knows no ending, and does not admit of either satiety or regret; for a right-thinking mind never alters or becomes hateful to itself, nor do the best things ever undergo any change. But pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us most. It has no great scope, and therefore it soon cloys and wearies us, and fades away as soon as its first impulse is over. Indeed, we cannot depend upon anything whose nature is to change.

A man should be unbiased and ought not to be conquered by external things. He ought to feel confidence in his own spirit, and